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Dwight D. Eisenhower 


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PUBLISHED FOR THE 

NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION 
BY THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES TRUST FUND BOARD 
1995 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

p. cm.—(Presidential perspectives from the National 
Archives) 

Includes bibliographical references (p. ). 

ISBN 1-880875-05-5 

1. Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969- 2. 
Presidents—United States—Biography. 3. Dwight D. Eisenhower 
Library. 4. Presidents—United States—History. I. Dwight D. 
Eisenhower Library. II. United States. National Archives and 
Records Administration. III. Series. 

E836.D83 1995 
973-92T092—dc20 

[B] 94-24298 

CIP 


Martin M. Teasley revised and updated the Eisenhower 
biography, and James W. Leyerzapf wrote the Eisenhower 
Library section. The biography and historical perspective 
are based on text in The Presidents (National Park Service, 
1977), edited by Robert G. Ferris and James H. Charleton 
and revised by Lewis L. Gould. Edited by Henry J. Gwiazda 
and Janel McCarthy and designed by Janice Hargett. 

All photographs are from the collections of the 
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library unless otherwise noted. 


COVER: George Tames/NYT Pictures, photograph from the 
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library 





















Dwight D. Eisenhower 
Thirty-fourth President 


1953-61 


A popular World War II military 
hero who had achieved a distinguished 
Army career, Eisenhower led the 
nation during two Presidential terms 
of international peace and domestic 
prosperity. He negotiated an armistice 
in Korea, furthered international disar¬ 
mament, reduced cold war tensions, 
and launched the U.S. space program. 
His domestic program accepted and 
even expanded some New Deal social 
welfare legislation, but he did not suc¬ 
ceed in translating his own popularity 
into a broader victory for the Repub¬ 
lican Party. He emphasized governmen¬ 
tal economy and decentralization of 
federal projects through cooperation 
with state and local government and 
private enterprise. Although some 
have criticized him for not exercising 
greater leadership in the area of civil 
rights, he did send federal troops to 
Little Rock, AR, to enforce the court- 
ordered desegregation of Central High 
School. He was a strong and effective 
President whose historical reputation 
has improved greatly since leaving 
office. 



ABOVE: Dwight Eisenhower (far left ) poses with his parents, David and Ida, and brothers 
Edgar, Milton (front ), Earl (back center ), Arthur, and Roy in 1902. 

ABOVE LEFT: Bureau of Engraving and Printing 


2 







The Eisenhauers came to America in 1741 
from Germany, settling in the fertile farm 
country around Harrisburg, PA. The family 
belonged to the River Brethren religious 
sect, an offshoot of the Mennonites. David 
Eisenhower, Ike’s father, came west in 
1878 at the age of 14 with his parents and 
other family members to homestead near 
Abilene, KS. David, however, had ambi¬ 
tions other than farming and went off to 
Lane University in Lecompton, KS, to study 
engineering. There, he met fellow student 
Ida Stover, a bright young woman from 
Virginia. The two were married within a 
year, and the newlyweds returned to 
Dickinson County to open a dry goods 
store in the small farming community of 
Hope, KS, some 20 miles from Abilene. 

The business failed when disastrous 
weather ruined the farm economy, and 
David found work with the Kansas-Pacific 
Railroad. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the third 
son of David and Ida Eisenhower, was 
born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, TX, 
during the brief period his father worked 
outside the state for the railroad. In 1892 
his family returned to Abilene, where Ike 
grew to manhood. His father worked as a 
mechanic in the Belle Springs Creamery. 
From his pacifist and devout parents, Ike 
and his five brothers received strong reli¬ 
gious training. Young Ike attended public 
schools and was a good student who 


excelled in sports. 

After graduation from high school, Ike 
worked for 2 years at the Belle Springs 
Creamery with his father to help put older 
brother Edgar through college. Edgar was 
expected to return the favor, but instead 
Eisenhower applied to West Point and 
Annapolis after learning about the “free 
education” offered by the U.S. military 
academies. He was too old for admission 
to the Naval Academy but was accepted 
by the Army, and in June 1911 he reported 
to West Point. Little did he know he was 
embarking on a course of public service 
that would span half a century. 

At West Point, Ike was an above aver¬ 
age student whose first love was athletics. 
When a knee injury ended his football 
career, he almost dropped out. Encouraged 
by his classmates to continue, Eisenhower 
graduated in the top third of his class and 
was commissioned an infantry officer with 
the class of 1915. (Later this class would 
be known as “the class the stars fell on,” 
as over one-third of the members became 
general officers either just before or during 
World War II.) 

During his first assignment as a second 
lieutenant at Fort Sam Houston in San 
Antonio, TX, Eisenhower met Mamie 
Geneva Doud of Denver. They were mar¬ 
ried in 1916 and would have two sons. 

The first child died in infancy, an event 


Ike (front center ) camps with friends along 
the Smoky Hill River just south of Abilene, 
ca. 1907. 



In 1916 Second Lieutenant Eisenhower 
married Mamie Geneva Doud of Denver. 







After World War I, Captain Eisenhower served with 
the Tank Corps at Fort Meade, MD. 




The Eisenhowers pose with their first son, 
Doud Dwight, in 1919- Eisenhower later 
described 3-year-old Doud’s subsequent 
death from scarlet fever as “the greatest 
personal loss of my life.” 


Eisenhower later described as the greatest 
personal loss of his life. 

Eisenhower was frustrated at not serv¬ 
ing overseas during World War I, but he 
impressed his superiors nonetheless. He 
established and commanded the tank train¬ 
ing center at Camp Colt in Gettysburg, PA. 
His performance was so outstanding that 
he was one of only eight of his classmates 
to be promoted to the rank of temporary 
lieutenant colonel by war’s end, a mere 
3 years after graduation from West Point. 
The Eisenhowers fell in love with the 
Gettysburg area and some 30 years later 
would purchase a farm there—the only 
home they ever owned. 

Promotion was slow between the two 
world wars, but Eisenhower further en¬ 
hanced his reputation among the Army’s 
senior officers with his excellent staff work 
and planning. In 1926 Ike graduated first 
in a class of 245 at the Command and 
General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, KS. 
He then served with World War I hero 
Gen. John J. Pershing, preparing a guide 
to European battlefields for the American 
Battle Monuments Commission. 

After graduating from the Army War 
College in 1928, he served in Washington, 
DC, as executive officer for the Assistant 
Secretary of the War until 1933- Major 
Eisenhower was then appointed chief mili¬ 
tary aide to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 


4 


Army Chief of Staff, and in 1935 followed 
MacArthur to the Philippines, serving as 
assistant military adviser to the fledgling 
Philippine army. Lieutenant Colonel 
Eisenhower returned stateside in December 
1939 and assumed command of troops at 
Fort Lewis, WA. With war looming, he 
was a key officer in the famous Louisiana 
Maneuvers of 1941, the largest peacetime 
military exercise ever held in the United 
States. He received his first star in 
September 1941, just 9 weeks before the 
attack on Pearl Harbor. 

When the United States entered the 
war, Eisenhower was immediately called 
to Washington to serve in the War Plans 
Division of the War Department, where he 
began developing the plan for U.S. military 
action in the European Theater. Greatly 
impressed by this work, Chief of Staff 
George C. Marshall suggested that 
Eisenhower lead the U.S. forces in the 
endeavor. 

Eisenhower’s direction of the invasions 
of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy brought 
him international fame and proved him to 
be one of the world’s leading military fig¬ 
ures of the war. By February 1943 he had 
received his fourth star. 

In December 1943 Eisenhower was 
appointed Supreme Commander, Allied 
Expeditionary Force, and he displayed a 
genius for running the wartime coalition. 







The Supreme Allied Commander consults with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 
France in March 1945. 


On June 6, 1944, the D-Day invasion of 
France signalled the beginning of the final 
phase of the European war. Germany 
would surrender 11 months later in May 
1945, but first Eisenhower would be pro¬ 
moted to the newly created five-star rank 
of General of the Army on December 20, 

1944. 

Although Eisenhower viewed his lead¬ 
ership of the Normandy invasion as the 
single greatest accomplishment of his life, 
he felt humbled by the fame it brought 
him. In a June 1945 ceremony held in the 
ancient Guildhall. Eisenhower was made 
a “Freeman of the City of London." While 
greatly honored, he told those gathered 
that “Humility must always be the portion 
of any man who receives acclaim earned 
in the blood of his followers and sacrifices 
of his friends.” 

Eisenhower headed the American occu¬ 
pation forces in Germany until November 

1945, when he returned to the United 
States to serve as Army Chief of Staff. 
During the next 3 years, he oversaw 
peacetime demobilization and the integra¬ 
tion of the Army into the newly formed 
Department of Defense. 

By now General Eisenhower was a 
national hero. His high school nickname 
of "Ike” and his distinctive grin were trade¬ 
marks of his winning personality. Crusade 
in Europe (1948), the memoirs of his 


European service, was a bestseller. He 
discouraged Presidential draft movements 
by both Republicans and Democrats in 
1948, retired from the Army, and assumed 
the presidency of Columbia University in 
New York City. Late in 1950 President 
Truman asked him to return to active duty 
to command the military 7 forces of the 
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 
which had been formed the year before. 
Eisenhower took a leave of absence from 
Columbia and returned to Europe as the 
first SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander, 


Europe). 

As the 1952 elections neared, an 
Eisenhower-for-President draft campaign 
began within the Republican Party 7 . Ike was 
persuaded to return to the United States 
in June 1952 and to cast his lot with the 
Republicans. He made a vigorous run for 
the nomination against Senator Robert A. 
Taft of Ohio and the isolationist wing of 
the GOP. He gained the party's nomination 
on the first ballot and chose a young 
Senator from California, Richard M. Nixon, 
as his running mate. 







In June 1945, to honor his role in the defeat of 
Germany, the British conferred on Eisenhower 
the title of “Freeman of the City of London.” 

Library of Congress 


Eisenhower proved to be a skillful 
and popular campaigner whose political 
views were those of the “middle way” 
between Old Guard Republican conser¬ 
vatism and the “big government” philoso¬ 
phy of the New Deal and Fair Deal 
Democrats. His promise to go immediate¬ 
ly to Korea if elected in search of an end 
to the armed conflict was reassuring to 
the war-weary public. “I Like Ike” was 
the campaign slogan, and America did 
indeed like the war hero, for he won a 
landslide victory over his opponent, 

Senator Adlai E. Stevenson. 

After his first day as President, Dwight 
D. Eisenhower wrote in his diary that 
“today just seems like a continuation of 
all I’ve been doing since July ’41.” If Ike 
was well prepared for his new responsi¬ 
bilities, so was his wife, Mamie Doud 
Eisenhower. Mamie first moved into the 
spotlight when her husband was named 
commanding general of U.S. forces in 
Europe in 1942. She felt it her duty to 
serve as a role model to the other war 
wives waiting for their husbands’ return 
from overseas. She led a simple exis¬ 
tence, avoiding an active social life, and 
volunteered time to wait tables at the 
Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines Club. She 
saw Ike only once during his 3-year 
absence and wrote him almost daily. Ike in 
turn wrote her some 300 letters, which his 






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Eisenhower campaigns in Baltimore, MD, in September 1952. The popular hero won a 
landslide victory over Democratic Presidential nominee, Adlai E. Stevenson 

Maryland State Police, photograph from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library 


6 













Eisenhower greets participants in a White 
House conference on schools. During his 
administration, Eisenhower supported 
federal aid for educational programs and 
school construction. 

National Archives, 79-AR-3142B 



Mamie’s influence as a fashion trendsetter was apparent at the 
White House reception for the finalists in the I960 Betty Crocker 
Homemaker of Tomorrow contest. 

National Park Service, photograph from the 
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library 


son. John, later published in a volume enti¬ 
tled Letters to Mamie (1977). 

When her husband became President, 
Mamie did not seek out a public role as 
first lady. In her view, being the best host¬ 
ess possible was her primary' duty, and no 
one was better prepared than the woman 
who had entertained all the royalty of 
Europe as wife of the NATO commander. 


She was never over¬ 
whelmed by the 
White House. She 
was “commander in 
chief” in the resi¬ 
dence, quickly estab¬ 
lishing her rule over 
the staff. She was 
very popular with the 
American public and 
set fashion trends that 
continually placed 
her atop the list of 
"best dressed 
women.” Matching 
hats and handbags 
accompanied her 
famous hairstyle, 
w hich featured the 
"Mamie bangs.” She 
was far from an 
activist first lady but 
seemed perfect for 
the times. 

The newly elected President w'as a 
moderate who quickly recognized that he 
would have to accept much of the New 
Deal and Fair Deal programs that 
Roosevelt and Truman had achieved. 
Eisenhower, who had led the largest armed 
force the world has ever known, was also 
intimately aware of the high price paid for 
national defense. Ike feared the nation 


would become bankrupt if its leaders w r ere 
unable to control the military budget. In 
his first Presidential address to the United 
Nations, he warned: 

Every gun that is made, every 
warship launched, every rocket 
fired signifies, in the final sense, a 
theft from those who hunger and 
are not fed, those who are cold and 
not clothed. 

The President's "Modern Republica¬ 
nism" sought to achieve a balanced budget 
and to scale back the amount of social 
welfare legislation and the extent of 
government regulation of the economy. 
Eisenhower had a Republican majority in 
both houses of Congress for the first 2 
years of his Presidency, but for the remain¬ 
der of his time in office, he had to w r ork 
with a Democrat-controlled Congress. 
Generally, the President and Capitol 
Hill cooperated constructively, and the 
Eisenhower administration achieved a good 
deal of important domestic legislation. 
Eisenhower signed law's broadening Social 
Security coverage and increasing the mini¬ 
mum wage. He authorized the construction 
of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a joint 
American-Canadian venture, which was 
opened to ship traffic in 1959. The 
President also supported federal aid for 
local health assistance, school construction, 
and educational programs, particularly for 


7 














The President discusses the Suez Crisis witli Secretary 
of State John Foster Dulles on August 14, 1956. 



Eisenhower proudly displays a brown trout, 
which he caught during a fishing trip to 
West Greenwich, RI, in September 1958. An 
avid sportsman and outdoorsman. President 
Eisenhower expanded the national park 
system with his “Mission 66” program. 


8 



the sciences. 

A key program of the Eisenhower years 
was the interstate highway system. In 1919 
Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower had partici¬ 
pated in the Army’s famous transcontinen¬ 
tal truck convoy across America, a journey 
that took 3 months and highlighted the 
pitiful state of the nation’s highway system. 
The convoy prompted Eisenhower to begin 
thinking about the need for good, two-lane 
highways, but true inspiration awaited his 
wartime service in Germany. The German 
autobahns, he said, “made me see the wis¬ 
dom of broader ribbons across the land.” 
The President signed the Federal Aid 
Highway Act on June 29, 1956, and thus 
began the biggest peacetime construction 
project of any description ever undertaken 
by the United States. Today, Eisenhower is 
recognized as the father of the modern 
interstate highway system, which totals 
over 40,000 miles. 

Where possible, Eisenhower sought to 
minimize government activity. His adminis¬ 
tration lowered individual and corporate 
taxes, abolished the Reconstruction Finance 
Corporation, stressed reduction of the fed¬ 
eral budget, and rejected proposals for 
public utility dam projects. During his 
administration, the 49th and 50th stars 
were added to the U.S. flag when he wel¬ 
comed Alaska and Hawaii into the Union. 

Eisenhower was an avid outdoorsman 


and a strong proponent of the U.S. nation¬ 
al park system. He believed it was the gov¬ 
ernment’s responsibility to preserve and 
manage these national treasures for the 
enjoyment of all Americans. In 1956 he 
announced a 10-year program, called 
“Mission 66,” which would increase fund¬ 
ing and expand the nation’s park system. 

In the field of civil rights, Eisenhower’s 
view was that “there must be no second- 
class citizens in this country.” Previous 
administrations had attempted to make 
progress through legislation that was 
blocked by opposition from southern 
Democrats. Eisenhower thought that the 
executive branch should first “get its own 
house in order,” and he quickly ordered 
an end to segregation in the District of 
Columbia and on military installations. His 
efforts to integrate the military completed 
a process begun by President Truman in 
1948. 

Foreign affairs attracted most of 
Eisenhower’s attention during his first term. 
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was 
a highly visible policymaker, but the 
President exercised the real power in ren¬ 
dering decisions in this area. While main¬ 
taining a strong defensive military posture, 
the new President sought to lessen cold 
war tensions. Fulfilling his campaign 
promise, he went to Korea after the 
election, and he eventually secured an 







The Commander in Chief aboard the nuclear sub¬ 
marine USS Seawolf off the coast of Newport, RI, 
on September 26, 1957. Eisenhower oversaw the 
expansion of the U.S. military’s nuclear capability 
w hile simultaneously promoting peaceful uses of 
atomic energy. 


armistice that ended the conflict in 1953. 
The following year, the United States 
joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organi¬ 
zation (SEATO), a collective security 
arrangement among anti-Communist gov¬ 
ernments. 

Eisenhower wisely resisted the pressure 
inside his own administration for military' 
involvement in Southeast Asia. He would 
not support France's ongoing colonial war 
because the French government would not 
announce publicly its intention to grant 
independence to Vietnam. Eisenhower 
correctly felt that the Vietnamese would 
“transfer their hatred of the French to us” 
if the United States replaced France as an 
occupying force. In addition, the old sol¬ 
dier demonstrated a practical wisdom 
when he told his National Security Council, 
“This war in Indochina would absorb our 
troops by divisions!” Eisenhower, however, 
did extend economic and military assis¬ 
tance to the government of South Vietnam 
after France withdrew its military forces in 
1954. Unfortunately, subsequent adminis¬ 
trations would fall victim to the temptation 
of sending U.S. soldiers to fight commu¬ 
nism on the shores of Asia. 

Joseph Stalin died 6 weeks after 
Eisenhower took office, and the President 
quickly took the opportunity to extend the 
olive branch to the Soviet government. In 
his April 1953 “Chance for Peace” speech, 


Eisenhower exhorted that “the hunger for 
peace is too great, the hour in history too 
late” for governments to give their people 
mere empty promises or gestures. 
Eisenhower’s initiative led to a gradual 
easing of East-West tensions during the 
early years of his Presidency. In 1955 the 
new Soviet leaders agreed with the other 
three occupying powers—France, Great 
Britain, and the United States—to sign a 
treaty creating an independent Austria. 
There was also talk of peaceful coexistence 
between capitalism and communism. For 
Eisenhower, the growing nuclear arsenals 
of the United States and the Soviet Union 
created a sense of urgency. He tried to 
obtain an agreement with the Soviet Union 
limiting nuclear arms and halting testing. 

He proposed to the United Nations in 1953 
what he called an “Atoms for Peace” pro¬ 
gram, which envisioned the peaceful use 
of atomic energy in developing countries. 
His efforts eventually led to the creation 
of the International Atomic Energy Agency 
in 1956. 

Eisenhower met in 1955 with French, 
British, and Soviet leaders at a summit 
conference in Geneva, Switzerland—the 
first since the 1945 Potsdam Conference. 
The meeting of the Big Four focused on 
the German question and other East-West 
issues facing the former World War II 
allies. In a surprise move, Eisenhower pro¬ 


posed to the Soviets an "Open Skies” plan, 
which entailed the interchange of military 
installation blueprints and mutual rights 
of aerial reconnaissance and inspection. 
Although the Soviets rejected “Open Skies,” 
the Geneva Summit contributed to the con¬ 
tinuation of a short-lived thaw in relations 
between the U.S.S.R. and the West. In 
1993, some 38 years after Eisenhower’s 
original proposal, the United States and 
Russia implemented a program of mutual 
nuclear inspections. The program, quite 
appropriately, was called “Open Skies.” 

The “spirit of Geneva” soon disap¬ 
peared. In October 1956 the Russians put 
down a revolt in Hungary, and the United 
States offered asylum to the refugees of the 
uprising. The crisis in Hungary arose in the 
midst of Eisenhower’s campaign for a sec¬ 
ond Presidential term. The election of 1956 
found Eisenhower the dominant figure 
on the political landscape. Within the 
Republican Party he had withstood the 
threat that Senator Joseph McCarthy of 
Wisconsin had posed to his leadership. In 
1953-54 the Senator continued his ongoing 
anticommunism crusade against the new 
administration. The President did not attack 
McCarthy directly but allowed the Senator 
to make political blunders that destroyed 
his own credibility. Eisenhower’s view was 
that "nothing will be so effective in com¬ 
bating his particular kind of troublemaking 


9 








as to ignore him.” While this strategy even¬ 
tually succeeded. Eisenhower’s unwilling¬ 
ness to counter McCarthy’s more reckless 
allegations hurt the administration. 

Eisenhower also surmounted major 
health problems in the 1956 Presidential 
race. He had suffered a serious heart attack 
in September 1955 and had an intestinal 
operation in June 1956, but by fall he had 
recovered enough to carry on a reelection 
campaign. Richard Nixon was again his 
running mate. The Democrats renominated 
Stevenson, but he lost to the popular 
incumbent President by an even more sub¬ 
stantial margin than in 1952. The foreign 
crises that eaipted during the later stages 
of the campaign sealed Eisenhower’s tri¬ 
umph; few voters were willing to switch 
administrations while fighting raged in 
Hungary and along the Suez Canal. 

In one of the most personally difficult 
actions of his Presidency, Eisenhower, late 
in 1956, joined the Soviet Union and the 
United Nations in criticizing the joint 
French, British, and Israeli attack on Egypt, 
which was aimed at forcing the Arab 


10 


Scientist Werner von Braun (right) shows 
President Eisenhower and NASA Administrator 
Keith Glennan (left) a model of the Saturn 
rocket during the September 8, I960, dedica¬ 
tion ceremonies at NASA’s Marshall Space 
Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. Eisenhower 
created the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration in 1958. 


nation to reopen 
the Suez Canal. 
The principled 
stand Eisenhower 
took against his 
own allies, 
whom he 

thought were violating Egypt’s national 
sovereignty, was well received by Third 
World nations. In 1957 Eisenhower 
announced what became known as the 
“Eisenhower Doctrine,” which committed 
the United States to helping Middle Eastern 
countries resist communism. The next year 
U.S. forces briefly intervened in Lebanon at 
the request of the Lebanese President. The 
Middle Eastern problem would remain an 
intractable one for American policymakers. 

The second term brought more foreign 
and domestic problems and fewer political 
successes than the President had enjoyed 
during his first 4 years. In October 1957 
the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first earth 
satellite. The United States would counter 4 
months later with the launching of its own 
satellite, Explorer I, but the psychological 
defeat aroused the country. In response, 
the President created the National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration 
(NASA) in 1958. Ever the moderate, 
Eisenhower did not advocate a crash pro¬ 
gram to regain the lead in space from the 
Soviet Union. What he could not share 


with his countrymen was the fact that, at 
his direction, secret U-2 reconnaissance air¬ 
craft had been overflying the Soviet Union 
with regularity since July 4, 1956. Because 
of this intelligence source, he was well 
aware of the limits of the Soviet military 
threat. Eisenhower also knew r that the 
United States would soon begin a recon¬ 
naissance satellite program as well as 
continue the U-2 missions. Ironically, by 
launching Sputnik first, the Soviets had 
established the principle of “freedom of 
space,” which precluded any grounds for 
future protest they might have lodged 
against overhead surveillance by the 
United States. 

Civil rights confronted Eisenhower with 
hard choices in his second term. In Brown 
v. Board of Education of Topeka, the 
Supreme Court had declared segregation 
in public schools to be unconstitutional. 
Eisenhower has been criticized by some 
historians for not lending his moral author¬ 
ity to the 1954 court ruling. However, in 
September 1957 he deployed federal 
troops to Little Rock, AR, to implement 
the court-ordered enrollment of blacks at 
Central High School when local and state 
authorities tried to block the action. That 
same year Eisenhower signed into law the 
Civil Rights Act of 1957. The act created a 
Civil Rights Commission along with other 
provisions and was the first significant 









We protest I 

SCHOOL 

StGREGM^OH 


A 


During the Eisenhower administration, black Americans 
began turning toward demonstrations and sit-ins to 
express their demands for equality. 

National Archives, 306-ST-818-63-4118 



ABOVE: Eisenhower meets with Martin 
Luther King, Jr. (left') and A. Philip 
Randolph (right) in the Oval Office on 
June 23, 1958. White House staffer E. 
Fredrick Morrow stands behind King. 

ABOVE RIGHT: Nikita Khrushchev and his 
wife join the Eisenhowers at a state dinner 
during the Soviet Premier’s September 
1959 visit to the United States. 



piece of federal legislation in this area 
since Reconstruction. In I960 he supported 
another bill providing voter registration 
protection for blacks. Despite these actions, 
his critics charge that the President’s over¬ 
all record on civil rights did little to meet 
the demands of a black community that 
was turning to demonstrations and sit-ins 
to make its grievances known. 

The recession in 1958 and a general 
dissatisfaction with the Republican Party 
after its 6 years in power brought impres¬ 
sive Democratic gains in the congressional 
elections that year. The Democratic opposi 


tion increased its 
majority in the Senate, 
where a number of 
hopefuls for the 
I960 Democratic 
Presidential nomina¬ 
tion vied for public 
attention. On the 
Republican side, 

Vice President Nixon 
seemed the clear 
frontrunner. 

Foreign policy 
issues dominated 
Eisenhower’s last 2 
years in office. 
Fulfilling a 1954 com¬ 
mitment to Nationalist 
China, the President 
backed that government’s resistance to 
Communist China’s bombardment of the 
offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu. 
Seeking further improvement in relations 
with the Soviet Union, Eisenhower invited 
Premier Nikita Khrushchev to tour the 
United States. During the Khrushchev visit 
in 1959, the two world leaders discussed 
international issues at the Presidential 
retreat at Camp David, MD. In May I960 
the promise of a relaxation of international 
tensions faded. After an American U-2 
reconnaissance jet was shot down inside 
the Soviet Union, Khrushchev abruptly 


11 

























Lyndon Johnson speaks with the former 
President aboard the Presidential plane in 
1965. White House successors often consult¬ 
ed Eisenhower about matters of state. 



ended a Paris summit meeting and can¬ 
celed the reciprocal trip Eisenhower had 
planned to the Soviet Union. 

Tensions flared elsewhere in the world 
as political factions clashed in Laos and 
secessionist and revolutionary elements 
fought in the former Belgian Congo (Zaire) 
just after the nation had achieved indepen¬ 
dence. Disagreements between the United 
States and Cuba led to a rupture in diplo¬ 
matic relations as Fidel Castro’s govern¬ 
ment began favoring the Soviet Union. 
Finally, the situation in South Vietnam con¬ 
tinued to deteriorate. Eisenhower had sent 
large amounts of economic aid and some 
military assistance, but the total number 
of U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam 
was well under 1,000 as the administration 
prepared to leave office. 

The I960 election of John F. Kennedy 
was a great disappointment to Eisenhower. 
His campaigning for Nixon in the latter 
stages of the election had helped to make 
the result very close. In a farewell address 
to the nation on his last day in office, 
the old soldier warned his fellow citizens 
of the need to be on guard against the 
acquisition of unwarranted power by the 
“military-industrial complex.” The term 
thereafter became a part of the American 
political lexicon as a series of Presidents 
confronted the demand for increased 
expenditures for the cold war and nuclear 



Eisenhower greets President-elect John F. Kennedy in December i 960 . The election of the 
Massachusetts senator was a disappointment to Eisenhower, who had campaigned for Vice 
President Richard Nixon. 

National Park Service, photograph from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library 


12 









The image of Eisenhower golfing was a popular one 
during his Presidency. With the increased availabili¬ 
ty of his Presidential records, however, Eisenhower 
is seen less as a grandfatherly, golfing-playing 
President and more as an active Chief Executive 
skilled at the “hidden hand” style of governing. 


arms race far less successfully than 
Eisenhower. 

Eisenhower's resistance throughout his 
Presidency to the great political pressure 
for increased federal spending was an 
important achievement. He balanced the 
budget in 3 of the 7 full fiscal years during 
which he served, and at no time in the 
other years did the deficit exceed 2.3 per¬ 
cent of the gross national product. His con¬ 
servative position on taxes and spending, 
while politically unpopular, ensured that 
there was a balance or surplus in the gov¬ 
ernment’s fiscal accounts, except during 
recession. Eisenhower brought the budget 
to structural balance and kept it there. His 
accomplishment is all the more remarkable 
in view of the economic records of subse¬ 
quent Presidents. 

Out of office, Ike retired to his farm in 
Gettysburg, PA, and wrote his memoirs. He 
enjoyed being a gentleman farmer, raising 
purebred Angus cattle, and spending time 
with his four grandchildren. During his 
retirement years, his successors in the 
White House often consulted him on 
important matters of state. Eisenhower died 
on March 28, 1969, at Walter Reed Army 
Hospital in Washington, DC. His widow 
and son, John S. D. Eisenhower, survived 
him. 

In the 1960s Eisenhower’s historical 
standing suffered in the shadow of 


the John F. Kennedy 
mystique. Shortly 
after he left office, a 
poll of historians 
ranked Eisenhower 
as a “below average” 
Chief Executive 
when compared to 
all who had held the 
office before him. 

He was perceived as 
a grandfatherly, golf¬ 
playing, caretaker 
President who had 



served merely as 
chairman of the 
board during his 
tenure in the White 
House. Some 30 years later, however, 
Eisenhower has achieved a “near great” 
ranking in the scholarly community. The 
reason for this amazing turnaround is 
twofold. First, the series of “failed 
Presidencies” (an assassination, the 
Vietnam War, Watergate) that followed his 
made Eisenhower’s 8 years of peace and 
prosperity look very good in comparison. 
Also, as his Presidential files have become 
available for research at the Eisenhower 
Library, there has been growing evidence 
that Eisenhower was indeed an engaged 
leader who set the policy of his administra¬ 
tion. Historians and political scientists 


began crediting him with a “hidden hand” 
style of governing that left few public 
traces of his efforts but brought impressive 
results. 

Dwight D. Eisenhower handled the 
Presidency with skill and determination, 
and his historical position is likely to 
remain secure and even improve in the 
years ahead. 


13 



























The Dwight D. Eisenhower Library 
in Abilene, KS, presents visitors with an 
architectural arrangement that differs 
markedly from all other Presidential 
libraries. Unlike the typical library housed 
under a single roof, the Abilene facility 
comprises five structures: the library, the 
museum, the Place of Meditation, the 
visitors center, and the boyhood home. 
Collectively, the five buildings, located 
on a park-like mall, are known as the 
Eisenhower Center. A larger-than-life 
bronze statue of General of the Army 
Dwight D. Eisenhower provides a central 
focus for the 22-acre site, and a grouping 
of five monumental pylons defines the 
eastern boundary of the complex. 

Built entirely with private funds (as are 
all Presidential libraries in the National 
Archives), the Eisenhower Center was 
developed through the efforts of many 
individuals over a span of five decades. 

At the end of World War II, a number of 
Kansans who w r anted to honor Eisenhower 
for his wartime service organized the 
Eisenhower Foundation. After the death 
of Eisenhower’s mother, Ida Stover 
Eisenhower, in 1946, the Eisenhower 
brothers donated to the foundation the 
family home located on the southern 
edge of town. The modest three-bedroom 
dwelling, built in 1888 by an Abilene 
schoolteacher, was the Eisenhower 


The 

Dwight D. Eisenhower 
Library 


home from 1898 until 1946 and witnessed 
the growth to maturity of Arthur, Edgar, 
Dwight, Roy, Earl, and Milton Eisenhower. 
(The third son, Paul, died in infancy.) A 
classic example of the two-story clapboard, 
carpenter-designed home constructed 
throughout the Midwest during the late 
19th century, the boyhood home is fur¬ 
nished with the original furniture and arti¬ 
facts enjoyed by the Eisenhower family. 

The first building project of the 
Eisenhower Foundation, the museum, 
was begun in 1952, the year in which 
Eisenhower first won the Presidency. 
Completed in 1954, the building, construct¬ 
ed of Kansas limestone, set the architectur¬ 
al precedent that all subsequent buildings 
at the center would follow. The addition 
of an east wing in 1971 doubled the muse¬ 
um’s size, providing more than 30,000 
square feet of exhibit space. 

The museum has five galleries: an 
Introductory Gallery in which the visitor 
can view a synopsis of Eisenhower’s life; 
a Military Gallery, which tells the full story 
of Ike’s military career and World War II 
service; a Presidential Gallery, w’hich illus¬ 
trates the major events, issues, and accom¬ 
plishments of his administration; a First 
Lady Gallery, which offers displays on 
Mamie Eisenhower; and a Changing 
Gallery, which features special themes 
and major traveling exhibitions. 



ABOVE: Dedicated in June 1985, this bronze 
statue of General of the Army Eisenhower 
serves as a focal point for the Eisenhower 
Center. 

OPPOSITE PAGE: The Eisenhower Museum 
features more than 30,000 objects from 
Ike’s boyhood, 40-year military career, and 
two-term Presidency. 


15 







Relatives and descendants of the 34th 
President gather for a photograph at Ike’s 
boyhood home. 




The museum’s galleries bring to life the 
“Happy Days” of the 1950s during which 
Eisenhower was President. 


The museum's 35,000 artifacts, of which 
approximately one-third are on display 
at any given time, constitute a largely 
untapped source of research materials 
for students of military, political, and art 
history as well as for biographers of 
Eisenhower and his associates. One of the 
most striking components of the museum’s 
holdings is the collection of orders, 
awards, and medals presented to 
Eisenhower during and after the war. The 
Britt Brown Small Arms Collection contains 
examples of most U.S. military small arms 
used during World War II as well as 
many of the ancillary items used with the 
weapons. A large collection of political 
cartoons, consisting primarily of original 
drawings, and a vast array of campaign 
objects, including posters, buttons, and 
jewelry, reflect the political issues, events, 
and personalities of the 1950s. 

The museum’s fine collection of original 
art includes paintings by Eisenhower and 
other artists, prints from several centuries, 
sculpture, art glass, tapestries, and ceram¬ 
ics. Its oriental art objects include such 
items as scrolls, cloisonne, and lacquer 
work. Of special interest are several 
bronzes and paintings by western artists. 
The museum’s remaining holdings include 
philatelic and numismatic items of note. 

Although the Eisenhower Foundation 
originally formed in order to develop a 


16 


memorial honoring Eisenhower’s wartime 
service, foundation members realized that 
the general’s election to the Presidency 
signalled the beginning of a new era in the 
history of the center. Soon after Congress 
passed the Presidential Libraries Act in 
1955, the foundation, led by former Kansas 
Senator Harry Darby, initiated a movement 
to construct a Presidential library in Abilene. 
The 1955 act authorized the National 
Archives and Records Service to operate 
and maintain any privately built library 
constructed to store and service the 
archives generated during a President’s 
term of office. Darby and his associates 
worked with Kansas Governor George 
Docking and leaders of the state’s legisla¬ 
ture to formulate legislation creating the 
Eisenhower Presidential Library 
Commission. Through public subscription, 
the commission, along with the Governor’s 
National Committee for the Eisenhower 
Presidential Library, raised the funds neces¬ 
sary to build a suitable facility. 

On October 13, 1959, the day before 
his 69th birthday, Dwight D. Eisenhower 
spoke to a crowd at the groundbreaking 
ceremony for the Presidential library bear¬ 
ing his name. He told those present of his 
hope that future scholars visiting the library 
would study the events of the past half 
century with a concern primarily for “the 
ideals, principles, and trends that provide 




















guides to a free, rich, and peaceful future 
in which all people can achieve ever-rising 
levels of human well-being.” 

The two-story library is built of the 
same Kansas limestone used to constaict 
the museum. Upon entering the building, 
the visitor will find that its grand lobby, 
with a 35-foot-high ceiling, is faced with 
polished Italian book-matched marble, 
which contrasts with the rough-cut exterior 
stone. The facility’s ornamental bronze 
work features a motif of bison heads and 
native bluestem prairie grass symbolizing 
the surrounding Great Plains environment. 
The library contains a research room for 
scholars, large archival stack areas, an 
auditorium, a photographic laboratory, two 
exhibit areas, and staff offices. A majestic 
interior courtyard, lit by skylights and a 
large chandelier, serves as a reception hall 
for the library's frequent public programs. 

The library’s manuscript holdings, 
which amount to more than 22 million 
pages, document not only Eisenhower’s life 
and times but also the careers of his mili¬ 
tary, political, and government associates. 
Because of its rich archival collections, 
the Eisenhower Library has developed a 
deserved reputation as one of the world's 
premiere research facilities for the study of 
recent American history. The library’s 400 
manuscript collections include the papers 
and records of 15 Cabinet secretaries, 30 



In May 1992 the Eisenhower Library celebrated its 30th anniversary with a rededication 
program and a reunion of former staff members. 


17 





















Hundreds of scholars from around the 
world visit the library’s research room 
every year to take advantage of the rich 
archival resources. 


sub-Cabinet officials, 55 Presidential assis¬ 
tants, 24 White House offices, and 15 
Presidential commissions and committees. 
Also among the manuscript holdings are 
the papers of several Eisenhower family 
members, including Mamie Doud 
Eisenhower, John S. D. Eisenhower, and 
Milton Eisenhower. 

Twentieth-century military history is 
also well-documented as the library holds 
the papers of 33 general officers, including 
NATO Supreme Commanders Alfred 
Gruenther and Lauris Norstad and famous 
World War II generals Courtney Hodges, 
Walter Bedell Smith, and “Lightening Joe” 
Collins. The “Army Unit Records” collection 
totals 1.2 million pages and documents the 
operations of the hundreds of individual 
army units that fought in the European 
Theater during World War II. 

Although historical papers and records 
constitute the core of the library’s research 
materials, the manuscripts are supplement¬ 
ed by an audiovisual archives consisting 
of over 210,000 photographs, 585,000 feet 
of motion picture film, and 2,300 hours 
of audio recordings. A collection of more 
than 500 oral history transcripts, amounting 
to over 30,000 pages, also complements 
the personal papers and government 
records deposited in the library. These 
transcripts provide information on all 
phases of Eisenhower’s life as well as on 

18 - 



the major events associated with his mili¬ 
tary and civilian public service. 

Hundreds of researchers from around 
the world visit the Eisenhower Library each 
year to examine its rich historical collec¬ 
tions. Numerous articles, books, theses, 
and dissertations have been based wholly 
or in part on the library’s materials. In 
recent years two Pulitzer Prize-winning 
books, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther 
King, Jr., and the Southern Christian 
Leadership Conference (1986) by David J. 
Garrow and The Heavens and Earth: A 
Political History of the Space Age (1985) 
by Walter A. McDougall, were produced 
by scholars who conducted research in 
Abilene. Although doctoral candidates 
preparing dissertations outnumber any 
other single category of researchers, the 
library’s users include college professors, 
master’s degree candidates, college under¬ 
graduates, freelance writers, government 
historians, high school students, and ama¬ 
teur historians. The average researcher visit 
is 4 days, with many scholars in residence 
for several weeks. Some 25 percent of the 
researchers are from overseas. 

Additional information about the 
library’s historical resources, as well as 
information on research procedures, may 
be obtained by writing for the library’s 
publication Historical Materials in the 
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library. 


In recent years the library has devel¬ 
oped innovative programs to bring its 
unique historical resources to the general 
public. Guided tours that include hands-on 
experience with historical documents are 
given frequently to high school and college 
history and government classes; research 
projects have been developed that offer 
foreign language students the opportunity 
to learn their language through analyzing 
and interpreting original documents written 
in French, Spanish, and German; directed 
research experiences have been created for 
high school honors students; and work¬ 
shops are given for professional educators 
to encourage the utilization of historical 
documents in public school curriculum 
design. 

From 1962 to 1966, the center was 
administered jointly by the Eisenhower 
Foundation, which continued to operate 
the home and museum, and the National 
Archives and Record Service, which staffed 
the library. In 1966 the foundation turned 
over the home and museum to the 
National Archives. That same year the 
Eisenhower Presidential Library Commis¬ 
sion completed the Place of Meditation 
chapel, in which President and Mrs. Eisen¬ 
hower and their first-born child, Doud 
Dwight, are interred. The chapel was then 
transferred to the National Archives as well. 

In 1974 the center’s building program 























Members of Elderhostei, 
one of the many public 
programs offered by the 
center, salute General 
Eisenhower. 


LEFT: In 1966 the Eisenhower Presidential Library 7 Commission completed the Place of 
Meditation chapel, in w hich President and Mrs. Eisenhower and their first-born son are 
interred. 


concluded with the construction of a large 
visitors center. This modern structure hous¬ 
es a sales area offering commemorative 
items to visitors and a 300-seat auditorium, 
which is used for public showings of the 
library's visitor orientation film as w r ell as 
for conferences, symposia, banquets, and 
other special events. 

A wide range of public programs com¬ 
plement the center's museum displays and 
archival research. The year 1990, which 
marked the centennial of Eisenhower’s 
birth, witnessed such major events as 
a conference on civil rights during 
Eisenhower's Presidency; a symposium 
on the “Living White House,” featuring 
children and grandchildren of recent 
Presidents; addresses by former Presidents 
Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan; and a 
grand finale on the 100th anniversary of 
Eisenhower’s birthday, October 14, that 
included a World War II vintage aircraft 
show, a replicated World War II battalion¬ 
sized encampment, a USO show, a Billy 
Graham church service, and a world-class 
fireworks display. 

In 1994, on the 50th anniversary of 
D-Day, the library hosted a 2-day national 
conference that brought together military 
scholars as well as key British, American, 
French, and German participants in that 
epic World War II event. The Abilene 
commemoration also provided the occa¬ 


sion for an emotional reunion of dozens of 
Normandy Invasion veterans from through¬ 
out the United States. 

Other library-sponsored programs 
have included an annual “Eisenhower Era ” 
Elderhostei and scholarly conferences on 
such varied topics as the “1950s,” the 
“American Dream,” the North Atlantic 
Treaty Organization, “Women in the 
Service of Their Country,” and the 1952 
Presidential election. 

Public areas of the Eisenhower Center 
are open every' day (Christmas, New Year’s 
Day, and Thanksgiving excepted) from 
9:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Public hours are 
extended in the summer months. The 
library's research facilities are open 
Monday through Friday, federal holidays 
excepted, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. and 
on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. 
by appointment. A fee is charged at the 
museum for all persons 16 years of age 
and older. Admission to all other buildings 
is free. 



In 1990, as part of the centennial 
celebration of Eisenhow er’s birth, former 
President Ronald Reagan spoke at the 
Eisenhower Center. 


19 

























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During the two centuries that the United 
States has functioned as a democracy, the 
institution of the Presidency has emerged 
as the central focus of the nation’s political 
affairs. Through the crises that have con¬ 
fronted Americans over this period—a 
bitter civil war, world wars, economic 
depressions and panics, and major social 
upheavals—and in the moments of triumph 
and accomplishment, the Presidents have 
become the personification of what the 
United States stands for and seeks to be. 
The 40 men who have sat in the Oval 
Office thus represent an important source 
of continuity and confidence as citizens of 
the United States contemplate their govern¬ 
ment and its affairs. 

The quality of the Presidents has been 
varied and often controversial. Some of 
them have been great men—Abraham 
Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. 
Roosevelt. Others have been failures and 
disappointments. Many have grown while 
in office; others fell short of demonstrating 
the qualities of character needed for 
Presidential success. The Presidency has 

George Washington took his oath of office 
on the balcony of New York City’s Federal 
Hall on April 30, 1789. As America’s first 
President, Washington set the standards for 
all subsequent Chief Executives. 

Library of Congress 


The Presidency 
in Historical Perspective 


usually defied simple generalizations and 
easy explanations about why some suc¬ 
ceed in its duties and others fail. 

The Presidency and the young United 
States of America did not seem destined 
for world leadership when the office was 
created during the 1787 Constitutional 
Convention. In 1789, when the Constitution 
went into effect, the nation was a small, 
rural, predominantly agricultural republic 
that consisted of 13 states along the eastern 
coast of North America. The population 
stood at 4 million people in a country that 
had virtually no weight in world affairs. 
Two centuries later, the United States has 
been transformed into an urban, industrial 
nation of 50 states extending westward 
to Alaska and Hawaii. The number of 
Americans stands near 260 million, and 
the country has become a superpower in 
economic, political, and military terms. 

As the nation has grown, the institution 
of the Presidency has evolved with it. The 
19th century was a time when the office 
expanded its powers somewhat, but a 
fundamental evolution of the modern 
Presidency began at the turn of the 20th 
century with the contributions of William 
McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and 
Woodrow Wilson. The emergence of the 
strong Presidency has taken place for a 
number of reasons. Faced with the chance 
to accomplish goals that were in the na¬ 


tional interest, Presidents have turned to 
powers that were implied but not expressly 
stated in the Constitution. As both domes¬ 
tic and foreign demands on the govern¬ 
ment increased, Cabinet departments were 
expanded or newly established to meet 
these expanding requirements. Correspon¬ 
dingly, the size of the Presidential staff 
grew as special assistants and aides were 
added to support the work of the Chief 
Executive. During the late 19th and early 
20th centuries, as the economy became 
industrialized and the population urban¬ 
ized, regulatory agencies in the executive 
branch proliferated to deal with the grow¬ 
ing complexities and inequities of national 
life. 

The United States became a world 
power by 1900, with a consequent growth 
of the role of the President as a diplomatic 
leader and as Commander in Chief of the 
nation's military forces. As a result, the 
apparatus of the Presidency grew to meet 
these enhanced world responsibilities. The 
world wars of this century proved power¬ 
ful stimulants to the rise of a strong and 
often imperial President. 

All of this would have seemed impossi¬ 
ble during the 19th century. At that time 
the national government was relatively 
small and easy for a President to adminis¬ 
ter. Often the President would have 
only one secretary or clerk to assist him. 


21 





President and Mrs. Lincoln preside over 
the 1862 New Year’s reception at the White 
House. Until the need for more stringent 
protective measures became apparent, such 
receptions were commonplace and made 
the President highly accessible to the 
public. 

The White House 


Presidents drafted their own speeches and 
messages and usually had to write them 
out in longhand. Military commissions, 
appointments to office, and other docu¬ 
ments had to be signed by the President. 
The only time that an incumbent had any 
semblance of a staff was when he bor¬ 
rowed clerks or specialists from the various 
departments and agencies of the govern¬ 
ment. The President sought advice mainly 
from his Cabinet, or his “official family” 
as it was known, and from friends and 
colleagues in the political community. 

As the first citizen of the nation, the 
President was expected to be accessible to 
the people. Regular public receptions at 
the White House were common, and the 
people stood in line to shake hands with 
the President. A Chief Executive could 
make speaking tours of the country during 
his term of office, though Presidential trav¬ 
el was less frequent than in the 20th cen¬ 
tury. When a President ran for reelection, 
it was regarded as undignified for him to 
campaign personally, and no President did 
so successfully until Woodrow Wilson in 
1916 . 

Security for the President was rudimen¬ 
tary during the 19th century. Abraham 
Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 brought 
some Secret Service protection for subse¬ 
quent Presidents, but it was still relatively 
easy to see the President at the White 


House during the first three decades of the 
20th century. James A. Garfield in 1881 
and William McKinley in 1901 were two 
more victims of the inadequacies of 
Presidential protection before the advent 
of institutionalized security procedures. 

The role of the President in American 
political life was less marked before 1900. 
After the 1830s political parties handled 
most of the campaigning duties. A nomi¬ 
nee for the Presidency would make a 
speech formally accepting the decision of 
his party and issue a letter of acceptance 
that would serve as a major campaign doc¬ 
ument. After the Civil War, the practice of 
“front-porch” campaigns emerged. James A. 
Garfield and Benjamin Harrison began this 
campaign style, and it reached its peak 
with William McKinley’s race in 1896. More 
than 750,000 people came to his home in 
Canton, OH, during August, September, 
and October 1896 to hear McKinley give 
graceful addresses that were reprinted the 
following day in newspapers all over the 
country. McKinley’s rival, William Jennings 
Bryan, made a “whistlestop” campaign of 
the country. Although he lost, the new 
technique eventually became standard 
practice in the century to come. 

The Presidential campaign itself took 
some time to emerge. From George 
Washington through John Quincy Adams, 
there were no true campaigns in the mod¬ 


ern sense. Presidents did not have to be 
party leaders, and congressional caucuses 
and state legislators chose Presidential 
candidates. The candidates directed their 
appeals to Congress and the legislatures 
rather than to masses of voters. 

By 1828, however, all the states except 
Delaware and South Carolina had turned 
to the selection of electors by popular 
vote. Andrew Jackson in 1828 was the first 
Presidential candidate to be popularly 
elected in the modern sense. Further 
democratization of the process occurred in 
1832, when both the Democrats and their 
Whig opponents held the first national 
conventions to nominate candidates for 
President. 

In 1840 the election of William Henry 
Harrison began a practice of electioneering 
that scholars have called “spectacular poli¬ 
tics.” The Whigs portrayed Harrison as a 
national hero who had lived in a log cabin. 
They used campaign slogans and songs 
and sought voter participation in torch¬ 
light parades. Voter turnout in the elec¬ 
tion increased. Political parties paid more 
attention to the popular image that their 
nominee would present on the campaign 
trail. 

By the end of the 19th century, the 
appetite for the politics of display and 
spectacle gave way to campaigns of educa¬ 
tion that showered the voters with millions 


22 














Presidential campaigns have become a fun¬ 
damental part of the American political 
process. This 1880 campaign poster helped 
James Garfield win the White House. 

Library of Congress 


of documents and lengthy speeches. The 
early part of the 20th century saw the rise 
of merchandising techniques that were bor¬ 
rowed from business and marketed the 
candidates through advertising and appeals 
to the voters as individuals. In comparison 
to the 19th century, the role of the political 
party' decreased in Presidential elections 
while the degree of popular interest and 
involvement in these Presidential elections 
fell off from the high levels of the 1880s 
and 1890s. In the late 20th century only 
about one-half of the eligible electorate 
votes in a Presidential contest in contrast 
to the 75 percent or more of the electorate 
that voted a century ago. 

Since 1900 the President’s political, 
economic, military, and diplomatic powers 
have expanded beyond what predecessors 
of a century' ago could have imagined. The 
size of the executive branch has grown 
dramatically. The complexities of the office 
in an era of instant communication 
require hundreds of special advisers at the 
White House. The President has become a 
world figure whose health, opinions, and 
movements can affect economic markets 
and political events. Television and radio 
transmit his statements to the rest of the 
world in an instant. 

Traditionally, until the early years of the 
20th century, the President did not leave 
the continental United States during his 



term of office. Theodore Roosevelt broke 
this precedent by traveling to the Panama 
Canal Zone in 1906, though he did not 
conduct business with foreign leaders. 

After World War I, Woodrow Wilson went 
to Europe for the Paris Peace Conference 
to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. Now 
Presidents can travel to any part of the 
world at a moment's notice. More is 
known about the President's views than at 
any other time in the past. To protect him 
from danger, the Secret Service has insisted 
on tight security for the Chief Executive. 
The result is that the President is better 
known to the world, but very' much less 
accessible to the public at large. 

As the nation’s chief diplomat, the 
President is responsible for the formulation 
and execution of foreign policy. Through 
the Department of State he appoints and 
supervises a large diplomatic corps, negoti¬ 
ates treaties with other nations, administers 
foreign aid, officially receives world leaders 
and their representatives, attends interna¬ 
tional meetings and peace conferences, 
and makes visits to foreign countries as a 
kind of goodwill ambassador of the United 
States. At times of foreign crisis in this cen¬ 
tury, during two world wars and the cold 
war that began after 1945. the President 
has emerged as a leader of democratic 
forces. 

The President must discharge the con¬ 


tradictory' roles of serving as the bipartisan 
spokesman for the American people as a 
whole while also being the leader of his 
political party’. He makes recommendations 
to Congress regarding legislation, oversees 
the economy, assures domestic tranquillity, 
and provides relief during natural disasters. 
He is also the chief of state, who partici¬ 
pates in a variety of ceremonial activities 
and embodies the values of the nation 
when he speaks on its behalf. 

To become President and to be reelect¬ 
ed requires that the Chief Executive engage 
in a hectic and exhausting round of politi¬ 
cal campaigning. That process has been 
demanding since it became common for 
candidates to make an active canvass on 
their own behalf. In the last true “whistle- 
stop" campaign before the advent of mod¬ 
ern air travel. Harry’ S. Truman traveled 
more than 31.000 miles and delivered 
356 speeches during a period of 5 weeks. 
Public financing now provides the money 
for Presidential campaigns, but the Presi¬ 
dent has to be the chief fundraiser for his 
party’ before and during elections. It has 
become customary for the Presidential 
candidate to establish a separate campaign 
committee to handle the intricate operation 
of a large and specialized campaign staff. 

The duties of the President never stop, 
not even for an instant, during his term. 
The press corps wishes to be kept aware 


23 












LEFT: After World War I, President Wilson 
( center ) traveled to Paris with other mem¬ 
bers of the American Peace Commission to 
negotiate the Versailles treaty. Wilson was 
the first U.S. President to conduct business 
outside of the country during his term of 
office. 

National Archives, lll-SC-47395 


RIGHT; Suffragettes register to work as vol¬ 
unteers during Work! War I. Until the pas¬ 
sage of the 19th amendment in 1920, 
women were one of several groups exclud¬ 
ed from full participation in government. 

National Archives, 165-WW-600A-1 


of his movements and actions in the 
event of illness or a personal tragedy. His 
responsibility for the nation’s nuclear forces 
is inescapable, and the mechanism for 
invoking that terrible option is never far 
from his side. Should the President become 
ill or need medical attention, the public 
expects to be informed about his condition 
and prognosis for recovery. The activities 
of his wife (the First Lady) and members of 
his family receive almost as much attention 
as the President himself. To say that the 
President is the constant object of national 
attention understates the degree to which 
he is in the spotlight of media coverage 
and public concern. 

This modern expansion of the Presi¬ 
dency would have seemed impossible 
when George Washington took his oath of 
office at New York's city hall in 1789. The 
experiment in constitutional and democrat¬ 
ic government that was being launched 
depended on Washington’s willingness to 
accept the office of President. Support for 
the new Constitution rested in part on the 
knowledge that Washington would be the 
first Chief Executive. The first President 
was an aristocrat, but he approached his 
new office without seeking to achieve 
exalted status or arbitrary power. He was 
devoted to the principles of republican 
government and was well aware that he 
was setting precedents. During the 8 years 


that followed, he defined the institution 
that the Constitution had only outlined in 
the broadest terms. 

In the process, Washington enabled the 
new republic to survive its early years. He 
overcame the emergence of political parties 
and partisan rivalries, withstood the insta¬ 
bility in the fledgling economy, and avoid¬ 
ed difficulties with the more powerful 
nations of Europe. Perhaps most important 
of all, he laid the basis for a structure of a 
workable national government. Washington 
supplied what the Articles of Confedera¬ 
tion had lacked: a strong President not 
tied to the legislative branch but part of 
the constitutional system. Washington 
asserted his authority in areas where the 
Constitution did not specify whether the 
Congress or the President was to act. Yet 
Washington respected Congress and main¬ 
tained good relations with the lawmakers. 

The next several Chief Executives— 
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James 
Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy 
Adams—added their contributions to the 
evolving institution of the Presidency. John 
Adams’s nomination of John Marshall to be 
Chief Justice of the United States proved a 
decisive step in the development of the 
judiciary as a force in national life. The 
Louisiana Purchase, during Jefferson’s 
administration, doubled the size of the 
United States and showed how the powers 


of the office could be stretched to take 
advantage of historic opportunities. The 
national political system emerged during 
this period, and the young republic sur¬ 
vived the foreign crises and domestic 
issues of the years between 1800 and 1828. 
The War of 1812, which occurred because 
of disputes with Great Britain arising from 
the Napoleonic Wars, was the one impor¬ 
tant military conflict of this period. 

The war ended in a kind of diplomatic 
and military stalemate, but the nation 
found its independence reaffirmed and its 
destiny ratified. A fervor of nationalistic 
spirit resulted, along with an expansion 
of political democracy for white, male 
Americans. Black Americans were still, 
for the most part, enslaved in the South, 
Native Americans were displaced and per¬ 
secuted, and women lacked even a mea¬ 
sure of full political and social rights. 
These problems were not addressed as 
the nation grew. The population tripled, 
and millions of pioneers pushed past the 
Appalachian frontier into the Mississippi 
Valley and beyond. The United States was 
a growing, more confident nation of two 
dozen states during the 1820s. 

The Presidents from Andrew Jackson 
through James Buchanan confronted the 
issues that expansion and social problems 
presented. The relationship of the federal 
government to the states, the role of the 


24 












































government in promoting economic 
growth, the balance of sectional power— 
all these dilemmas expressed themselves 
in the turbulent politics of the pre-Civil 
War era. Added to this mix of concerns 
was the divisive and explosive issue of 
human slavery and the fate of blacks in 
the South. Where did the power reside to 
deal with this subject? Were the states sov¬ 
ereign and able to determine what their 
society and lifestyle should be? Did the 
power to regulate slavery or abolish 
human bondage lie with the national gov¬ 
ernment? The President became a focal 
point for the resolution of these problems 
as the North and South clashed over the 
South’s “peculiar institution” during the 
1840s and 1850s. As the tide of settlement 
pushed westward, a related problem 
emerged. Should these new territories be 
admitted to the Union as free or slave 
states? 

The western influence on the 
Presidency became evident during this 
same period. Ten new states in the South 
and West joined the Union. Andrew 
Jackson became the first westerner to 
occupy the White House, and three other 
Chief Executives from the same region fol¬ 
lowed him in the next decade and a half— 
William Henry Harrison, James K. Polk, 
and Zachary Taylor. American Indians were 
the greatest losers in the western move¬ 


ment as they were shoved aside and dri¬ 
ven into territories far from their familiar 
homes. 

All of the Presidents in these years con¬ 
tributed to the drive to the West and then 
grappled with the consequences for the 
slavery issue. Texas was a problem for 
Martin Van Buren and John Tyler. James K. 
Polk came into office as an advocate of 
expansion, which he achieved through war 
and diplomacy that pushed U.S. bound¬ 
aries to the Pacific. The aftermath of the 
Mexican War and the territorial quarrels 
that ensued shaped the Presidencies 
of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore. 
During the 1850s Franklin Pierce and 
James Buchanan sought to find ways to 
end the social turmoil that erupted in the 
violence of “Bleeding Kansas.” It was 
becoming evident that the slavery issue 
was straining the ties that bound the 
nation together. 

By the 1860s the people of the United 
States found it impossible to resolve the 
slavery problem without civil war. 
Abraham Lincoln and the new Republican 
Party wanted to put slavery on the road 
to eventual extinction. The South wanted 
slavery to live and grow. Sectional tensions 
led to the outbreak of war, but Lincoln’s 
Presidential leadership helped to preserve 
the Union and end slavery. After Lincoln 
was assassinated in 1865, the task of 


reconstruction fell into the hands of 
Andrew Johnson. His inability to under¬ 
stand the motives and attitudes of the 
Republicans of the North contributed to 
the bitter period that followed. Although 
the passage of the 14th and 15th amend¬ 
ments to the Constitution represented 
notable achievements, the nation did not 
succeed in providing enduring and mean¬ 
ingful civil rights and political opportunity 
to the new black citizens. 

During the late 19th century the United 
States moved away from the promise of 
human equality that had been implicit in 
Reconstruction. Good relations between 
northern and southern whites were re¬ 
stored, largely at the expense of black 
Americans, by the creation of a segregation 
system that would last until the 1960s. At 
the same time, the nation was becoming 
more industrialized and more urbanized. 

By the time of William McKinley’s death 
in 1901, the Union had grown to 45 states, 
and the rise of large corporations and a 
modern economy was reshaping American 
life. The nation watched the achievements 
of such inventors as Alexander Graham 
Bell and Thomas Edison and read of the 
entrepreneurial activities of such indus¬ 
trialists as Andrew Carnegie, John D. 
Rockefeller, and James J. Hill. 

During the 40 years after 1880, millions 
of immigrants came to the United States 


25 










William Howard Taft’s tenure, like that of 
other Progressive Era Presidents, was 
marked by political reform and industrial 
regulation. 

Library of Congress 


in search of economic opportunity. Within 
the nation's borders, many citizens left the 
countryside for city’ life. The general stan¬ 
dard of living improved, but the pace of 
social change brought persistent problems. 
Children worked long hours in factories 
and mills. Industrial safety was inadequate, 
and hundreds of thousands of accidents 
occurred on the job each year. Pensions, 
workman’s compensation laws, and unem¬ 
ployment insurance did not exist. Labor 
unions sought to organize skilled workers. 
The great mass of industrial workers had 
no defense against the inequities of the 
marketplace. 

Westward settlement ended as the 19th 
century closed. American Indians were dri¬ 
ven onto reservations, and their culture 
came under assault. The West boomed as 
prospectors, cattlemen, and wheat farmers 
pursued prosperity. When the economy 
faltered in the 1890s, agrarian discontent 
led to the rise of the People’s Party, or the 
Populists, across the South and West. The 
return of good times ended that movement 
as the new century neared. 

By 1898 the United States had become 
a world power. The war with Spain over 
Cuba produced a dazzling military triumph 
and added the Philippines, Guam, and 
Puerto Rico to the nation’s overseas pos¬ 
sessions. The imperialistic surge ebbed 
somewhat during the first two decades of 


the 20th century as the burden of empire 
became apparent. In 1912 the last of the 
2 contiguous 48 states, Arizona and New 
Mexico, were admitted to the Union. 
Alaska and Hawaii would not be added 
until 1958 and 1959 respectively. 

During the first two decades of the 20th 
century, the nation experienced a period 
of political reform and moral uplift that has 
come to be called the Progressive Era. 
Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William 
Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson dealt 
with the issue of the extent to which the 
national government should regulate an 
industrial society in order to relieve social 
injustice and promote a more equitable 
nation. The programs they pursued includ¬ 
ed substantial changes in the role of poli¬ 
tical parties and special interests in the 
making of national policies, passage of 
legislation to restrain big business and 
mitigate the effects of industrialism, and 
conservation and protection of natural 
resources. Roosevelt and Wilson especially 
relied on the power of the federal govern¬ 
ment and the expertise of the regulatory 
agencies to deal with a wide range of 
social problems. In time the Progressives 
also envisioned for themselves a larger 
world role in promoting a more stable 
international order. Woodrow Wilson 
would say that the United States intervened 
in the First World War to make the world 


“safe for democracy,” but the Versailles 
treaty and the failure of the United States 
to enter the League of Nations frustrated 
his idealistic vision. 

By the end of the First World War, the 
age of reform had passed, and the nation 
entered an era that President Warren G. 
Harding called “normalcy.” For the first 
time half the population lived in urban 
areas. The rise of a mass society and cul¬ 
ture also marked the decade of the 1920s. 
The automobile was changing the lifestyle 
of the United States, and the infant airlines 
began a slow process of growth that would 
eventually tie nations and continents to¬ 
gether. It was not, however, a period of 
vigorous political change. The Republicans 
dominated the electoral landscape, and 
Calvin Coolidge was President as the 
stock market boomed and the economy 
expanded. 

Beneath the facade of prosperity, 
problems of unequal income distribution, 
a weakened banking system, and a 
depressed farm sector signaled possible 
trouble. The stock market crash in the fall 
of 1929 began a sequence of events that 
led to the Great Depression, which lasted 
until the beginning of World War II. In a 
1928 victory’ over Alfred E. Smith, President 
Herbert Hoover had been elected as the 
masterful social engineer who could sus¬ 
tain the nation’s economic health. When 


26 





XE GODS' (, 
OLIVER TWIST 
HAD AIOTHING 


MORE! 

MORE! 


the Depression hit, his policies did more to 
combat the problems than those any previ¬ 
ous President had attempted during hard 
times. It was not enough. Hoover failed to 
deal effectively with the millions of unem¬ 
ployed who needed government assis¬ 
tance, and his emphasis on voluntary 
action over government programs seemed 
inadequate for the crisis that the United 
States confronted. Hoover’s grim personal 
manner added to the impression of insensi¬ 
tivity that doomed him politically. 

Historians are still arguing over who 
was the first “modern” President in the 
style that has become familiar to the 
nation. William McKinley, Theodore 
Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson all made 
important contributions to the emergence 
of a powerful and purposeful Presidency 
between 1897 and 1921, but the election of 
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 over Herbert 
Hoover brought to Washington a political 
leader who reshaped the office and the 
country during the unprecedented 12 
years of his administration. Roosevelt’s 
New Deal represented a forceful campaign 
to find measures that would lift the econo¬ 
my out of its doldrums. The New Deal 
programs had mixed results, and the 


Second World War did more to revive 
the economy, in part because so much 
more money was spent on fighting the 
war than had been expended on fighting 
the Depression. In the process, however, 
Roosevelt demonstrated what a President 
could do to lift the nation’s spirits in a cri¬ 
sis, helped to create the foundations of a 
modern welfare state, and made it impossi¬ 
ble for any successor to remain passive in 
the face of an economic downturn. The 
size of the Presidency also expanded as 
Roosevelt reached out to academics and 
experts for advice and ideas. 

Roosevelt became a world leader as no 
President before him had done. The eco¬ 
nomic problems of the 1930s contributed 
to the emergence of totalitarian leadership 
in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, who 
joined with like-minded aggressors in 
Italy and Japan to threaten world peace. 
Meeting the challenge of the Second World 
War led Roosevelt to begin establishment 
of what has been called the national secu¬ 
rity state. The Japanese attack on Pearl 
Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the 
nation into the world conflict and fostered 
the rise of the military power of the United 
States to new and higher levels. Eventual 


In an attempt to revive the economy and 
alleviate the social hardships caused by the 
Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt 
introduced the New Deal, which helped to 
establish the idea of the modern welfare 
state. 

Copyright Washington Post ; reprinted by 
permission of the D.C. Public Library 


defeat of Germany in May 1945 came at a 
high cost in terms of lives and resources. 
The atomic bomb brought the surrender 
of Japan 3 months later. The United States 
looked to the United Nations and the 
doctrine of collective security to prevent 
another world war and to maintain the 
coalition that had produced victory. 

Instead, a “cold war” between the 
United States and its wartime ally the 
Soviet Union began during the years 
1945-47 and continued for more than 
40 years. The Presidents from Harry S. 
Truman to George Bush who confronted 
these challenges found the range of their 
responsibilities and the size of their staffs 
continually expanding and becoming more 
complex. The President of the United 
States was now expected to maintain 
peace in a complex and interdependent 
world while fostering domestic stability 
and prosperity. 

On the domestic scene, the Presidents 
since the Second World War have relied on 
instruments of the federal government to 
lessen the effects of recessions and to 
keep inflation under control. The Chief 
Executives have also played important 
roles in encouraging the nation’s develop¬ 
ment as an industrial-scientific-technologi¬ 
cal society. One central example of this 
development is the space program during 
the 1950s and 1960s, which received much 


27 






































of its impetus from the leadership of John 
F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and 
landed a man on the moon by 1969. Other 
Presidents, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower 
and Ronald Reagan, gained immense politi¬ 
cal popularity from their leadership during 
times of economic prosperity and growth. 

Not all Americans shared in the bounty 
of the postwar period or enjoyed the full 
rights of other citizens. African Americans 
struggled during these same years to 
achieve their share of the national dream. 
The 1960s brought urban riots as a grow¬ 
ing black lower class expressed its discon¬ 
tent with the squalor of life in the ghettos 
of the nation’s cities. Native Americans, 
Hispanic Americans, and women articulat¬ 
ed similar and other grievances. During the 
1960s Lyndon B. Johnson and his Great 
Society addressed these problems with 
mixed results, and the struggle for a just 
and equitable society tested the leadership 
of the Presidents who followed him. That 
society remains an ideal still being sought 
as the 20th century nears its close. 

Foreign policy was the most pressing 
concern for all the Presidents in the four 
decades after 1945. The demands of the 
cold war on resources and lives were for¬ 
midable. The specter of nuclear annihila¬ 
tion formed an ominous background for 
every foreign policy judgment. Armed con¬ 
flicts in Korea during the 1950s and in 


Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s pro¬ 
duced faistration and division at home. 

In the case of Vietnam in particular, the 
wounds from that defeat festered for 
almost two decades after the actual Amer¬ 
ican involvement ended in the early 1970s. 
The nation has not yet fully resolved its 
ambivalent feelings about the war. 

Other foreign policy initiatives of the 
Presidents after 1945 did not produce such 
tragedy and dissension. The economic 
capacity and military power of the United 
States sometimes worked in the cause 
of peace and hope. Harry S. Truman’s 
Marshall plan helped rehabilitate the econ¬ 
omy of Western Europe after World War II. 
Dwight D. Eisenhower sought a safer 
world through his Atoms for Peace pro¬ 
gram. Richard Nixon pursued a policy of 
detente with the Soviet Union and opened 
better relations with the People’s Republic 
of China. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan 
both tried in different ways to achieve 
arms control with the Soviet Union. 

In spite of all these accomplishments, 
the American Presidency seemed to be in 
great trouble during the 1970s. Richard 
Nixon could claim foreign policy successes 
during his Presidency, including an end to 
American involvement in Vietnam, but the 
Watergate scandal drove him from office in 
disgrace. Gerald Ford restored some confi¬ 
dence in the institution but was not able to 


28 


In November 1974 Gerald Ford met with 
Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev in 
Vladivostok, U.S.S.R. Cold war relations with 
the Soviet Union troubled Presidents Harry 
Truman to George Bush. 

Gerald R. Ford Library 


convince voters to keep him in the White 
House. Jimmy Carter began his Presidency 
with bright hopes in 1977 but left office 
4 years later with economic conditions in 
disarray and another Presidency that failed 
to last two full terms. 

By the end of the 1980s, Ronald 
Reagan’s rhetorical skill, his personal opti¬ 
mism, and the expansion of the economy 
contributed to a better national mood and 
the sense that the Presidency could be an 
instrument of purpose and effectiveness. 
However, this renewed optimism was 
accompanied by a rapidly expanding 
national debt and an intractable federal 
budget deficit. These as well as the chal¬ 
lenges presented by the fall of communism 
and continuing problems in the Middle 
East and Africa marked the Presidency of 
George Bush, who was unable to maintain 
the momentum of the Persian gulf victory 
to win a second election. The new Chief 
Executive, William J. Clinton, continues to 
grapple with the problems of his predeces¬ 
sors while facing the new challenges of the 
1990s. 




For Further Reading 


Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower , 2 vols. (Simon and Schuster, 
1983-84) 

Michael R. Beschloss, Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the 
U-2 Affair (Harper and Row, 1986) 

Robert Fredrick Burk. Divight D. Eisenhower ; Hero and Politician 
(Twayne Publishers, 1986) 

Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower; The Personal 
Diary of Captain Harry 1 C. Butcher, USiXR, Naval Aide to 
General Eisenhower, 1942 to 1945 (Simon and Schuster, 1946) 

James C. Duram, A Moderate Among Extremists: Dwight D. 
Eisenhower and the School Desegregation Crisis (Nelson-Hall, 
1981) 

David Eisenhower, Eisenhower at War: 1943-1945i Random 
House, 1986) 


-, Ike's Letters to a Friend, 1948-1958. Edited by Robert 

Griffith. (University' Press of Kansas, 1984) 

-. Letters to Mamie. Edited with commentary by John S. D. 

Eisenhower. (Doubleday, 1978) 

-, The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, 13 vols. (The 

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970-89) 

Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as 
Leader (Basic Books, 1982) 

Merle Miller, Lke the Soldier: As They Knew Him (Putnam’s Sons, 
1987) 

Chester J. Pach and Elmo R. Richardson, The Presidency of 
Dwight D. Eisenhower (University Press of Kansas, 1991) 

Herbert S. Parmet, Eisenhower and the American Crusades 
(Macmillan, 1972) 


Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories 1 Tell to Friends 

(Doubleday, 1967) Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. 

Eisenhower, 8 vols. (U.S. Government Printing Office, 

-, Crusade in Europe (Doubleday, 1948) 1954—61) 


29 

























Also Available from the 


National 


r c h i v e s 



Milestone 

Documents 


This ongoing series of booklets 
focuses on some of the great docu¬ 
ments that have shaped the course 
of U.S. history. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Inaugural 
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Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated 
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inaugural address was a clear state¬ 
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dency. Includes a facsimile of the 
typed draft of President Roosevelt’s 
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8 J/ 2 x 11, 22 pages 
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For Americans, nothing that has hap¬ 
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reading copy of FDR’s historic address 
to Congress, as well as an introduction 
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war against Japan. 

8 X/ 2 x 11, 16 pages 
National Archives, 1988 
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Atoms for Peace: Dwight D. 
Eisenhower’s Address to the United 
Nations, 1954 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower 
used this speech to bring his concern 
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between the United States and the 
Soviet Union before the public. 
Contains a facsimile of the final draft 
copy of President Eisenhower’s 
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discusses the arms race and the 
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8 l/ 2 x 11, 32 pages 
National Archives, 1990 
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Kennedy’s Inaugural Address of 1961 

John F. Kennedy was the youngest 
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the 20th century. He wanted his inau¬ 
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more effective that way and I don’t 
want people to think I’m a windbag.” 
An introduction provides background 
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8 l/ 2 x 11, 30 pages 
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#200110 — Softcover — $3-50 
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The Cuban Missile Crisis: 

President Kennedy’s Address 
to the Nation 

One week before President Kennedy 
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8 C 2 x 11, 38 pages 
National Archives, 1988 
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Presidential Perspectives 
from the National Archives 


This new series highlights modern 
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt 

8 */ 2 x 11, 32 pages, 37 illustrations 
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#200117 — Softcover — $3.50 
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Gerald R. Ford 

8 x/ 2 x 11, 32 pages, 46 illustrations 
National Archives, 1994 
#200020 — Softcover — $3-50 
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1 - 880875 - 05-5 


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